Anyone heard of this guy?
 

Bill Gaither outsells FM

It's official. The Bill Gaither Tour for 2004 has outranked Rod Stewart, Elton John & Fleetwood Mac for concert tickets sold worldwide as reported to POLLSTAR for shows played between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2004, landing in the No 16 spot with an impressive 541,890 tickets sold.

If I'm not mistaken he's a gospel singer. There used to be (or maybe still are) Gaither family concerts. My grandparents are fans.

Of course I could be wrong and it might be someone else entirely.

You are correct - it is a family of gospel singers.

Yeah, if you click on the link I provided, there is a long article about him - it says that he sings gospel. But has anyone heard of him?

I have heard of him only because when I was a kid, my mom was the youth choir director at our church and I remember seeing some songbooks.

Yes...
 

I saw that article, too, today, and was like... "who???" I found the whole premise of the article strange too - it's official! He sold more tickets than Rod Stewart and Fleetwood Mac. Yipee. Is this some rite of passage? :shrug:

Yeah I've heard of him. He seems to pretty popular amung Christians into old school music. I seem to remember my grandparents watching one of his T.V. specials.

I've been to one of his shows.........years ago. :wavey:

My parents love the Gaithers. I believe that this guy has actually gotten several songs of his put into the Baptist hymnal - not an easy task! In fact, he wrote one of the hymns I find most moving: "Because He Lives." My favorite part is the chorus: Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.

I bet the Opening act is Box Car Willie. He use to sell alot of albumns too. (Maybe Slim whitman too!)

Boxcar Willie's worm food! :eek: I believe Slim's still here, at age 91. I saw it scrolling at the bottom of CNN yesterday!
I know that was meant as a joke, I just had to throw in the fact that I'd seen Slim's info yesterday! :rolleyes:

Wow, Nancy! I never knew that he had written that hymn! Good one :nod:

Yep. Never saw a parking lot so full of Cadillac convertibles with magnetic support our troop bumper stickers.

Ya aint been...
 

to OKC have ya? Gaither completely sold out the Ford Center (Except for the first ever show at the Ford Center in 2002 by the Eagles that had never been repeated).

Glad I made a mental note that day to avoid the downtown/Bricktown area.

(Just noticed Gaither is coming back to OKC on May 7...Must make ANOTHER mental note!)

Well you know, let's place Fleetwood Mac tickets at $18.75 to $48.75 and then see if this guy outsells them in quantity of tickets. :blob2:

that is exactly what i was going to say...

Doesn't surprise me at all that he outsells lots of pop acts. He has a corner on the senior market. My wife's parents went to a Gaither show in B'ham and said they felt like they were the youngest ones there. They're in their 50s. :laugh:

He's been writing music for going on 40 years and is still going strong. There's a DVD/CD industry behind these shows that you wouldn't believe. It also wouldn't surprise me if the Gaither CDs and DVDs outsold pop acts.

Gaither also isn't a "Christian" artist with any sights on branching out (a la DC Talk, Jars of Clay, Amy Grant, Scott Stapp, Lauryn Hill, etc.) into other types of music. Most young kids up to thirty-somethings in my church have never heard of him either. It's no wonder to me that most people haven't. He targets an older, affluent, very religious audience and targets it well.

~Jamie

Yep...I agree...
 

they are the same folk that Jim & Tammy Faye, Oral, Rev.Flawed-well, Swaggart, Tilton, etc. used to target years back...But when that current crop died out the next generation was ripe for the picking (Or fleecing...Ya know how those religious folk are always talking about Sheppards, Sheep, Flocks, etc. Just form the line and watch the $$$ float in...As the certain lyrics to a song go "Easy to lead...Easy to learn")

Well, no. It's more Branson, Missouri-hoe down-tour bus-type shows than TV evangelism. There are tons of old people that go to these shows that never darken the door of a church and wouldn't watch a second of Jim and Tammy if they were tied down Clockwork Orange-style. I'd compare his showbiz style more to, say, Hee Haw and the Grand Ole Opry of the 50s and 60s than to bad TV evangelism... but yes, still very "religious."

That makes the huge sales a lot easier to understand.

~Jamie

Well...being in the...
 

heart of the Bible Belt (Can't get worse than Oklahoma...More churches than population is pretty f**ked up if ya ask me) Be it televang-atards or those popular Bransom backwood pig f**king hoedowns it's all the same. :thumbsup:

Yea Bill Gaither is a southern gospel singer....and trust me, he does have A HUGE following!!!!

I LOVE Christian Music, but not big into the southern gospel stuff! :shrug:

I'm more of an Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith kinda guy!

Me too! Well, gal. LOL
 

Hate to say...
 

but I always thought Petra sucked ass...Way overrated.

I preferred the first 2 Stryper releases, ("The Yellow And Black Attack" & "Soldiers Under Command") Especially "Soldiers Under Command" which is still a heavy as hell release.

Otherwise I listen to no "Christian Rock" (I laugh at how accurate the South Park episode was with the aspect of selling "Christian Rock" :lol: ) if it's too preachy (Same goes for the other extreme with black metal.)

Jars of Clay makes some really great music, regardless of genre. Their debut album, "Jars of Clay," is amazing, as are "The Eleventh Hour" and "If I Left The Zoo."

That South Park episode was pretty much on the money. Very, very funny. One of the things I like about South Park is its ability to skewer some aspect of society while somehow still holding a respect for it, making you laugh at yourself rather than feel about an inch tall (like most people do when they make fun of or deride something that someone else holds dear). Don't know how they do it.

~Jamie